🔗 Share this article

For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit last year – will be able to observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, it comes roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at the source and track its path, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing the data obtained from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

Even though the numbers seem massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs carrying power equal to greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.